Is Inexperienced Leadership Killing Your Productivity and Performance?
Inexperienced Leadership
The Demographic Problem
The influence of inexperienced leadership on engagement has driven Australian employee engagement scores down in the last couple of years (according to global research firm ORC International) to the point where we fell four places in the global engagement rankings.
With many seasoned baby boomer leaders now retiring, less ‘downturn-experienced’ leaders are being pushed through the ranks. As such, Generation X & Y managers who are filling the leadership void are, in many instances, ill-equipped to deal with crisis management and the humanistic leadership skills required to cope with retaining and engaging their remaining time poor key talent.
In the year ahead the GFC may have jolted some less knowledgeable leaders into thinking about reducing human capital and leadership expenses. If these inexperienced leaders don’t play their engagement cards right, they could easily find themselves without a full house of valuable employees when the economy bounces back. It is worth reminding ourselves that economic conditions are short-term, but skill shortages are a long-term problem.
Leadership Is Getting More Challenging
The key role of leadership now is to be a catalyst that maximises productivity, performance and therefore profitability.
With downward pressure to do more with less, leaders are currently struggling with questions such as:
- What are the best low-cost ways of maximising the productivity and performance of our talent right now?
- How do we motivate and engage our people to do more with less simply and easily?
It’s useful to understand that virtually everyone is a leader, whether leading others, just themselves or juggling both roles. The good news is that we all have more influence over our own area of control than we might be giving ourselves credit for.
Right now we could all benefit from maximising productivity and performance by intelligently fast tracking engagement and motivation simply and easily, especially in under-resourced turbulent times where we’re all being asked to do more with less.
Most People Are Not Born Leaders
Good organisations are created and maintained by good leaders, great organisations by great leaders. The fact is not everyone is born a good, let alone, great leader. But as most employees leave leaders, not organisations, it is our responsibility to ensure the people leaders & managers we entrust with our organisational talent capital have the skills, tools and resources to maximise their people’s productivity and performance potential.
Unfortunately many organisations are reducing leadership development at exactly the time when the most acute leadership skills are required.
Creating leaders that are catalysts to maximising productivity and performance is simpler and easier than you think and requires no more than a 2% investment of time.
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